1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to techniques for the development of a design, and, more specifically, a system and method for identifying, organizing, prioritizing, and employing deep psychological metaphors, dimensions, and activating cues in the development of a design. The present invention is particularly useful in the field of architectural design.
2. Description of the Background
Traditionally, designers (e.g., architects, interior designers, landscape architects, and the like) have achieved designs through ideas that supported established, relevant goals. Design elements were selected based upon a design team's experience, as well as through client needs assessments, interviews, and surveys conducted during predesign. While these planning tools offer insights as a starting point for determining necessary physical attributes, they do not enable the designer to connect with the users and/or occupants of a design space on a profound emotional, intellectual, or experiential level.
A field in which such considerations are particularly important is that of architecture. Occupants (owners, tenants, employees, visitors, guests, etc.) of a building spend a large proportion of their time in that space. Accordingly, the conscious and subconscious perception of an architectural design by such occupants could be of paramount importance in informing the architectural design.
Several tools that are adapted to evaluate and extract the deep metaphors evoked in individuals presently exist. One such metaphor elicitation technique is the Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique (ZMET), as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,436,830, which is hereby incorporated by reference. ZMET is a research protocol grounded in multidisciplinary sciences, including clinical psychology, anthropology, linguistics, cognitive neuroscience, and sociology.
The ZMET approach recognizes that people think and communicate in complex ways that are not captured through traditional focus groups and surveying methods. Through ZMET, the metaphors within an occupant's thoughts and feelings can be revealed, and information that individuals are unaware that they know can be uncovered. This “hidden knowledge” influences behavior and perception.
ZMET employees a multi-step process to elicit information from research subjects regarding a particular topic, with an emphasis on visual images, metaphors, and emotions. Initially, a research subject in a ZMET analysis creates a collection of photographs or drawings, such as those found in magazines or newspapers. These photographs or drawings depict images evocative of the metaphors underlying a subject's experience with a particular topic. The research subjects will then examine these images and sort them into groups having similar qualities.
Next, the subjects relate these images to their sensory and emotional perceptions of the topic being evaluated. The subject identifies what is and what is not an accurate sensory representation of the topic, in terms of sound, shape, tactile sensation, color, taste, smell, and emotional feeling. Both the present feelings that a subject has about a type of topic, as well as the feelings that would be elicited from an ideal experience with that stimulus are identified by the subject.
A formal interviewing process may then take place, in which the interviewer asks the subject for a detailed account of how the images relate to the topic. During this process, the subject can describe a selected image that most accurately represents certain feelings and emotions, or images that impart the opposite of the desired feelings and emotions, or that there is a lack of images embodying the desired feelings and emotions.
After identifying these concerns in the interview, the subject creates an image using the photographs and drawings which best summarizes the meaning of the topic, and also creates a map or causal model using the constructs which have been elicited to express the subject's overall thinking about the topic. This map serves as a guide to further preparing a movie-like vignette or video that is expressive of the subject's feelings about the given topic.
The final step of the metaphor elicitation technique occurs when a researcher creates a diagrammatic consensus map representing the researcher's understanding of the metaphors contained in the various subject's thoughts. It includes the most important constructs and their interrelationships, and describes most of the thinking of most of the subjects most of the time. In essence, it is a qualitative integration of the information provided by all the interviewed subjects.
While such metaphor elicitation techniques have traditionally been employed in developing marketing schemes for various products, no one to date has employed the results of metaphor elicitation techniques to inform or influence the design process. There has been a long standing need in the design community to access the deep metaphors felt by users of products and occupants of buildings and to use this information to generate designs that resonate with and enrich the users' perceptions and experiences.
Such a long standing need has been clearly recognized by those of skill in the architectural art (see e.g., Koonce, The AIA Journal of Architecture, Spring 2003, page 2, which is hereby incorporated by reference). The present invention addresses and satisfies these needs.